Austin Hemmingson | Daily Press Bark River-Harris’ Joseph Stein (35) prepares to haul in a touchdown catch from quarterback Nick Javurek during Saturday’s game at BR-H. Defending for Munising is Josh Huotari.

HARRIS — In an old school, grind it out type football game, the Bark River-Harris Broncos made the key plays to finish it in the fourth quarter for a 14-7 win over Munising here Saturday in a WestPAC Iron Division contest.

Leading 8-7, BR-H’s Joseph Stein scored his second touchdown of the day on a 27-yard cutback run on the second play of the final period to give the Broncos a 14-7 advantage.

Then, with 1:55 remaining and the Mustangs facing a fourth-and-1 on the BR-H 39, the Broncos’ defense beat Munising quarterback Josh Huotari to the edge to stop him six inches shy of the first down and seal the game.

“I don’t know why it is, but a lot of times we control the line of scrimmage and then we find ourselves in a barn-burner at the end. These boys like a little drama or something,” BR-H coach Al Stenberg said.

“This was one of those games where we felt like we were just inches away from putting it away, and we couldn’t. We couldn’t put up two or three touchdowns when we needed to.”

The Broncos, who outgained the Mustangs 303-187, had a chance to seal it at the 5:13 mark of the fourth quarter when quarterback Nick Javurek scored on a 31-yard TD run on fourth-and-1. However, the play was negated by a holding call and Javurek’s pass on fourth-and-11 fell incomplete to give the Mustangs (0-3) one last chance.

“We had a couple penalties at the end of the game, and Munising just kept on playing,” Stenberg said. “They always play us tough. Last year they completely humiliated us (58-8), so we have a pretty good history going between the two teams. We’ve had a lot of playoff challenges between the two of us and we’ve had a lot of competitive games. We wanted to get back on the winning side of this one for sure.”

The Mustangs struck first on a 55-yard run to the left by Huotari at the 3:43 mark of the first quarter. After a successful point after, they led 7-0.

“Josh Huotari is our quarterback and our playmaker. On that touchdown run he made a nice play,” Mustangs’ coach Matt Mattson said. “We had a couple passes that we dropped that we normally catch, and we don’t have a ton of team speed so we’re not built to make a lot of long plays. We have to grind it out and we just ran out of gas a couple times.”

After spending a good chunk of the first half in Munising territory, the Broncos finally got on the board on a 10-yard pass from Javurek to Stein on a fourth-and-4 play with 3:18 left until halftime. Hudson Huff then punched it on the two-point conversion for an 8-7 advantage.

The Broncos (2-1) were driving again with 30 ticks left, but tailback Aidan Johnson fumbled on the Munising 33 on the tail end of a 20-yard scamper to leave the score at 8-7 entering the break.

“Defensively, we played well enough the past couple weeks to win some football games,” Mattson said. “Offensively, we’ve got to figure some things out. Our defense definitely held us in the game and gave us a chance, we just couldn’t convert on the offensive end.”

Trevor Lippens led a balanced BR-H attack with 20 carries for 102 yards and one reception for 24 yards. Johnson ran nine times for 70 yards while Huff carried seven times for 20 yards. Javurek finished 4-for-12 through the air for 54 yards and a touchdown while Stein carried seven times for 58 yards and a score and caught a 10-yard pass for both of the Broncos’ touchdowns.

“Joey hasn’t played football since youth, and he is a playmaker,” Stenberg said. “He’s our spark plug. He’s the type of kid that never stops — every day in practice he goes hard, he pays attention and he’s going to get better and better and better. When the chips are down, we try to get the ball in his hands because he can make something happen.”

Huotari, who accounted for 177 of the Mustangs’ 187 yards, went 9-for-12 for 63 yards passing while carrying 23 times for 114 yards and a touchdown. Chad Trapczyk had four catches for 27 yards, Ethan Lakosky had two catches for 22 yards and Austin Killips added two catches for nine yards.

The Munising jayvee team beat BR-H 23-6 Thursday night at Munising.

The Broncos visit Gogebic Friday while the Mustangs host L’Anse.